Volsky Special Administration of NKAO
Direct Soviet administration of NKAO under Arkady Volsky in 1989. Moscow suspended local republican control to defuse the Karabakh crisis, then abolished the arrangement after Azerbaijani protest, returning the oblast to Azerbaijani jurisdiction.
Account
Background
After Sumgait, Kirovabad and mass demonstrations, Moscow tried to contain Karabakh without changing borders. Direct Union administration offered a temporary way to reduce conflict between Yerevan and Baku.
Commission and failure
Arkady Volsky headed the special administration in NKAO. It suspended direct Azerbaijani republican authority while avoiding transfer to Armenia. Azerbaijani protests against the commission were intense, and Moscow abolished it in November 1989. NKAO returned to Azerbaijani jurisdiction.
For Armenians, this confirmed that Moscow would not protect the oblast's autonomy if Baku objected; for Azerbaijanis, the commission had been an unacceptable weakening of republican sovereignty contested. The Volsky period was the last serious Soviet middle formula: neither transfer nor full Azerbaijani control. Its failure pushed both sides toward maximal positions editorial.
Further reading
- Thomas de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, 2003
- Arsène Saparov, From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus: The Soviet Union and the Making of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, 2014
- Svante E. Cornell, Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus, 2001